CHAPTER EIGHTEEN : A BROKEN AFFAIR

To say that they were shocked to see me at work the next day was an understatement.

I entered the unit shortly before handover and moved with the group from cubicle to cubicle.
The speeches were given and I retired to the back of the group when everyone started singing their morning praise and worship songs. I didn’t know the hymn and I wasn’t much of a loud singer to begin with so I tried to stay small.
When this was done, we were assigned cubicles and of course the students had next to nothing to do between serving breakfast at eight and lunch at one in the afternoon. We wandered around, helping where we could and fetching things and observing fancy procedures until finally, there was nothing to be done but sit and grow old.
I was in an entirely empty cubicle, flipping through my Facebook page, seeing nothing really.
I wondered if he had a Facebook page.
But then again, maybe not…
The sun felt excellent on my skin as I stood in front of the giant window and I leaned against it, gazing out at the Johannesburg Zoo in the distance –
“Where were you all weekend?”
“Gossip spreads, I see,” I said.
Mmathapelo looked wounded. “I just wanted to apologize, akere.”
She leaned against the cardiac table that stood before the last bed in the cubicle and looked at me.
“For what?” I asked with a frown.
“What I said that time,” she said.
I was confused. “Okay…”
If anything, I accepted her apology just to get her to move off the topic – I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Really, where were you?”
“I was out,” I said.
“All weekend?”
“Why’s that so much of a shock?” I asked. She shrugged and I nodded my head.
Luke dropped down on one of the actual beds and looked at me expectantly.
“You were with him, huh?”
“Him?”
“Yeah,” he said. He jumped off the bed and approached me. He didn’t stop for anything and his behaviour was so random and uncharacteristic that I was frozen to the spot.
He all but pinned me to the thick glass, gazing down at me.
His voice was low and only I could hear him.
“I don’t know what happened with you le Kitso, but whatever the fuck it is, you need to fix it because I don’t like seeing her like that.”
He said the words so fast, but the emotion behind them was obvious – he was angry.
“I did nothing to her,” I answered in an equally quiet voice. “And this is none of your fucking business!”
“She’s my friend, it is my business.”
“I thought you were my friend, too,” I said. “Well that’s okay, I’ve been just fine on my own.”
I stepped passed him and avoided looking at Mmathapelo altogether.
I could hear them going off in Zulu but I didn’t want to hear what they were saying because I’d already decided that it was bullshit.
What exactly was Kay telling everyone about us?
This was the first and only time that I had ever been worried about the fallout of my moment with Kay.
Maybe I was being the bitch here.
I knew who she was when I let her kiss me like that and I knew what I wanted ultimately. So I hadn’t been fair to her at all, had I?
And now, I knew that even though Dom did not want me anywhere near her, it had to be done. I had to speak to her. I had to apologize.
I had to face my own desires…
Four o’clock came around and I was out of the door before any of them.
I reached the twelfth floor completely breathless and I reached her door just as she was closing it.
I entered her room, closing the door behind me. I dumped my bag on the floor, dropping to the ground right there against the door, taking deep, deep breaths.
Kay stood there staring at me for a long moment and I sat where I was, gathering pretty much every little piece of myself to say – I didn’t know what.
“Were you like, running up the stairs or something?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“I… Normally stop… On eight… I didn’t…” I said between breaths.
Kay looked around her with a random expression on her face and then looked back at me again. She moved toward me and turned the key in the lock above my head.
And then she did something that I think I saw coming, but didn’t plan ahead for – or had I planned ahead and this was the plan? To let her see it through?
She dropped down into my lap, straddling me.
She didn’t go slow this time.
She didn’t wait for a response and she didn’t give either of us a chance to take it back.
I didn’t even fight her and my mind was a tornado of thoughts and my heart a myriad of emotions that demanded I acknowledge them.
She gripped my head and kissed me, hard and without remorse.
So forceful was she that our teeth even bumped each other and I groaned in protest at the sharp but fleeting pain.
For a second, I let her do it because this was not the connection that I remembered.
I knew that she would calm down and she did.
The kiss slowed and she took up a rhythm that I followed easily, leaning into her, feeling it.
Her lips were soft and her mouth tasted like spice and flavour and something sour, like vinegar. Her lips were just as I remembered, but even they had a flavour – it was strawberry.
My body began to stir and she started to grind against me.
The floor was cold beneath me, a stark contrast to the burning of my flesh –
“Stop…” I breathed, pushing her away.
I opened my eyes with effort and looked at her.
Her lips were swollen from all the assault I’d given them, her skin flushed. Her eyes were narrowed almost to slits in her face, her arousal evident.
She lowered her head again, this time kissing my neck. I shivered as a frisson of pleasure flowed through me.
“This is not why I’m here – stop!”
I pushed her away again and this time I pressed the point by attempting to stand up – I was shaking too much.
She ended up sitting next to me, the sound of our breathing filling the silence.
“I came here to apologize – for all of this,” I said, angry. “I know I’m sending shit signals but if we’re being fair, you’re not even trying to listen to me here.”
“But you want this,” she said, her voice hard.
“That doesn’t make it right –”
“Excuse me?!”
“ – to you or to him!” I continued. “I am with him, so please respect that.”
She glared ahead, her expression one of complete defiance.
She looked up at me then.
“So what? If I’d been the one to kiss you first, then you’d be with me instead of him?” she asked.
I lowered my head, the frustration tearing at me.
“No,” I said.
This wounded her and I almost took the words back.
“I knew who you were and I knew what you were into…” I said slowly. “You gave me every chance to stop you and I didn’t… That was selfish of me and I admit that, but I didn’t think…”
I sighed heavily, covering my face with my hands, my lips starting to tremble as something like pain lanced my heart.
I didn’t like hurting her.
And more so, I was disappointed with myself for letting it get that far.
It was like a doorway had been opened for all the things that I had let happen that I shouldn’t have.
Shouldn’t have?
Was I even truly regretful of my actions? Did I really wish that I hadn’t kissed her? Did I really wish that I hadn’t spent the whole weekend over at Dom’s place? Did I really regret the fact that Dom had given me the best damn oral sex of my entire life?
Sex.
Was my oath even valid since I wasn’t really taking any steps to uphold it?
When I wasn’t with Dom, I was here with Kay and all those times, when either of them got close to me, my mind wandered to faraway places with locked doors where every surface was the perfect place to have either one of them.
I shook my head, taking my hands away from my face.
“Honestly,” I said. “I didn’t think you were into me like that…”
“And me kissing you didn’t make that clear?” she asked sarcastically.
“No,” I told her truthfully.
She jumped to her feet.
“I’ve never – nobody’s ever been into me before!” I exclaimed. She was taken aback.
“What?”
I stared down at my fingers, feeling embarrassed all of a sudden.
“There was nobody before him… And then there was you… I didn’t know what to do…”
She was silent for a moment and then she burst out laughing.
It was a hearty sound that made me feel so completely stupid and humiliated that I actually started to cry, the tears coming down my face slowly. I swiped at them, sitting there silently.
“Aowa, Dilia, ungakhali,” she said gently, sitting next to me again. I turned away from her, desperately wiping the tears from my face. The more she tried to calm me, the more the tears came. “Sorry, geh…”
A sob escaped and I was more determined to pull myself together.
Kay pulled me into an embrace with some coaxing and for a moment, we sat there in silence until the tears stopped and my senses settled.
She let me go and I glanced at her.
“I won’t touch you again, I promise…” she said quietly.
I didn’t respond to that with anything because I’d be lying either way I looked at it.
“If he’s not fucking you right –”
“Oh my word – Kitso!”
“Sorry – hey – sorry!” she chuckled, pulling me back down. “Damn, you’re so cute!”
I shook my head at this, unable to resist smiling.
“You’re a virgin!”
I snapped my head in her direction.
“I take that back, I’m gonna touch you!”
I smacked her hands away when she reached for me playfully. I pushed to my feet and picked up my bag as she rose to her feet as well.
“Why are you in such a hurry?” she asked.
“Because my bed awaits and I cannot wait to shower and pass out in it.”
Something sparked in her eyes and I removed the understanding of what she was thinking from my thoughts.
“Thank you for listening,” I said, reaching for the door. She unlocked it and looked at me.
“We’re good, D…”
Twenty minutes later, I collapsed on my bed and almost screamed at how uncomfortable it was. I missed being at Dom’s. I missed being in his arms.
I pulled out my phone and searched for his number and called his phone but he did not answer. He was either stuck in traffic or still at work, which was alright, I guessed.
He had a life outside of me after all.
I wished that I was passed this stage.
I wished that I had lived like he had – I wished that I had some experience.
Getting into the mindset of my life again had been somewhat of a challenge. Entering that hospital and remembering who I was took some doing because my brain was stuck in that place with him. His arms were around me and we were talking about pasta and trees and the sound the rain made against the windows and simply being silent in each other’s company. We were simmering in the chemistry, sometimes too shy to make any kind of move and sometimes, brazen enough to put our hands on each other, getting carried away.
Lying with him last night had been something slightly different.
His confidence wavered in places where he used to move without pause. He was gentler when he spoke and when he handled me. He paid more attention to me and he asked all kinds of random questions about my life.
And he held me for long periods of time and I listened to the sound of his breathing, felt it when his chest would rise and fall against me.
I needed that right now.
But sometimes, I wondered, if in the night, when I was fast asleep, he touched himself the way that he touched me. The alternative to that was that he didn’t feel anything at all and I wasn’t about to accept that notion even if it meant that he was in pain from a denied release.
There was a raging beast inside me that was threatening to break free of its restraints, a beast that had been kept well and truly hidden, even from me, for all these years.
I didn’t know what it looked like, but I knew some of the things it wanted.
And all of these things, were with Dominick.
It was that beast that had taken away all my fears and let him put his mouth on me like he’d said he wanted to do. It was that beast that had made me take my own juices from his mouth eagerly as he’d offered them to me, feasting on my own taste on his tongue.
It was that beast that made me wonder repeatedly what it would be like to have his cock in my hand as I pumped it slowly until he was writhing against my hold –
I sat up on my bed and put my pillow to my face, screaming into it.
And all of that may well and truly never happen once I told him what had happened today.
Was that what scared me? The possibility of losing the sex?
No.
In my introspection the night before, I’d realized that we were making out more than we were talking to each other. We had random conversations but not about all the things that mattered. I was reminded that I barely knew him.
And I wanted only to know him.
My phone rang. It was him.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“I’m at my place –”
“We need to talk.”
“It happened again.”
I swallowed hard. Was I that obvious? This was shit.
“Yes.”
He was silent.
“I’m sorry…” I said sheepishly.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you Friday.”
The line went dead.